In the central match of the U21 Ukrainian League round 7, Shakhtar receive Dynamo Kyiv. We bring you the match preview

The rivals approach the face-to-face meeting sitting in the top league spots: in six rounds, both teams scored 16 points. Shakhtar claimed the top position in the table owing to a better goal difference (19-3), while Dynamo have a slightly worse goal statistics: 14-1. The rest of the competitors lag behind the giants duo by five or more points.

In the past round, the charges of Valeriy Kryventsov defeated away Stal (3-0), who had previously nicked points from Kyiv. The league top scorer Mykyta Adamenko, who had notched sixth goals before, opened the scoring. At the end of the meeting, last season’s top scorer Andrii Boriachuk grabbed a brace.

International games filled a two-week league break. The Pitmen Kacharaba, Matviienko, Kiryukhantsev and Boriarchuk, as well as Dynamo players Lukyanchuk, Tsyhankov and Besedin helped Ukraine U21 beat their France counterparts (1-0) and Scotland (4-0) in the Euro 2017 qualifying competition. In addition, Korobenko, Zubkov, Pikhalyonok (all from Shakhtar), together with Chobotenko, Mikhailichenko, Tymchik and Shchebetun (all from Dynamo) took part in two friendly games of Ukraine U20 team. The above-mentioned players have returned to their respective clubs just two days before the U21 ‘Clasico’, in which connection the game was postponed until September 9.

Both teams have no suspended players, but some of them will miss the meeting due to injuries.

In the summer, Dynamo U21, being the current winners of the U21 league, were taken charge of by the Spaniard Unai Melgosa, replacing his compatriot coach Vicente Gomez. In the three opening matches of the season, Kyiv beat Oleksandriya (1-0), Karpaty (2-0) and Dnipro (2-0); and in the fourth round, they nearly lost to Stal (1-1), levelling it just in the dying seconds. After that, there were home wins at Volyn (5-0) and Vorskla (3-0).

The most prolific Dynamo player in those games was Artem Besedin, who scored 5 goals. At the same time, the goalkeeper Artur Rudko played games without conceding a single goal.

Match background

In the history of the U21 championships and reserve team competitors, the opponents had 24 meetings: 7 wins belong to Shakhtar, with 8 draws and 9 successful games for Dynamo.

This season, Shakhtar midfielder Mykyta Adamenko has not yet left the field without a goal scored, netting one in each of the six matches. Last season, another Shakhtar player Andrii Boriarchuk also celebrated goals in six matches in a row (from the second to the seventh round) and later won the league’s top scorers race with 20 goals scored.

After six rounds, Shakhtar still remain the most well-behaved team in the league: 9 bookings with no sending-offs. At the same time, Dynamo players have earned 13 yellow cards.